Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / School Avoidance: The Anxiety, The Struggles, The Solutions [with Megan Gilmour]

Transcript

School Avoidance: The Anxiety, The Struggles, The Solutions [with Megan Gilmour] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: More than forty percent of students in years one through
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: ten were missing at least one in ten school days.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Let me say that again. More than forty percent of
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: students in grades one to ten are missing at least
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: ten percent of school according to the latest Australian Curriculum
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Assessment and Reporting Authority data. That's AKARA, and that rate
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: has been steadily worsening over the past five years. Back
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, seventy three point one percent of students
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: were attending at least ninet percent of school days. By
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: last year, the figure was just fifty nine point eight percent,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately, the story keeps on getting worse. There are
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: certain demographics that are affected a little more than others
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: from a socioeconomic perspective. However, this is an issue that
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: seems to cross all barriers and all demographics and affect
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: so many kids. Talking today about kids who are missing school.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: If you are concerned about your child, their anxiety and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: their school avoidance, today's podcast is for you. I'm going
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to be speaking with Megan Gilmore, the founder and CEO
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: of Missing School. Stay with us, Hello, and welcome to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcasts, Real Parenting Solutions. Every day. This
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is doctor
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Justin Colson and today I'm joined by Megan Gilmore. Meighan
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: is the founder and CEO of Missing School. It's an
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: innovative charity that addresses educational isolation experienced by kids with
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: chronic health conditions. Although even though it's about chronic health conditions,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: if kids are missing school, that can be any number
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of things. Meighan Gilmour was named the twenty twenty five
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: ACT Australian of the Year because of the advocacy work
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that she's been doing, which began with her son's battle
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: with a life threatening illness that got her I guess
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: committed to transforming education and access to education nationwide. So
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: through Missing School, Megan champions the use of anything online
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to get kids active and engagement school and ensuring students
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: remain connected to their classrooms and communities regardless of any
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: health challenges they have. And her leadership and persistent advocacy
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: have positioned Missing School at the forefront of educational reform,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: driving crucial policy conversations and legislative change to support vulnerable
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: students across Australia. It's a long intro, But Meghan, I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: think you're worthy of it and so grateful that you're
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: sharing your time with me today to have a conversation
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: about kids missing school.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on justin.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So let's start with just your story in a nutshell,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: you've dealt with chronic school absence because of your son's
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: quite serious illness when he was young. What can you
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: tell us about what happened there for him, for you,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: and the impacts on you and your family.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, in twenty ten, when my healthy, vibrant ten
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: year old son took a rapid slide into critical illness
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the duration of years essentially, and he missed whole big
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: slabs of school for eighteen months and then intermittently for
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the rest of the time, and so school slipped away overnight.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: It was not just about academics, but also what we
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: witnessed through that medical treatment, not just for Darcy, but
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: for other kids who we were sharing hospital a wards with.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: It was that their friends had slipped away too, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: their identity as students and the routine, the every day
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: routine of school that helped them feel like kids. Our
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: whole family went into survival mode. I watched Darfie's sister
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Mea also carry that silent worry, the sibling grief and
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: anxiety and being kind of forgotten and left behind in
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: all of it too. And I dropped everything, of course, work,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: our normal life. And what struck us most about this
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: was that there was no education system roadmaps for families
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: like ours. We felt it invisible, and that isolation sparked
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: this lifelong mission that I'm now on.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating to hear you say that. I mean, we're
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: talking about social issues, we're talking about identity challenges obviously,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the educational missing so much work and the flow on
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: into the rest of the family. You're dealing with something
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: that specifically physically impacted your son. Okay, he's got a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: physical illness, but there's heaps of parents who are listening
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to this who are saying, well, my kids aren't in hospital,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: my kids don't have any kind of physiological challenges, but
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the mental health challenges absolutely there. It's anxiety, there's been
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: bullying issues or whatever, and I can't get my kids
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: out the door. I'm literally dragging them into the school
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and then they're coming home by recess. Anyway, what are
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you seeing as you have conversations because the research is
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: so patchy and so unhelpful in this are what are
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you seeing in terms of the impacts on kids who
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: are missing school on a regular basis, whether it's physical,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: physical health issues or mental health issues.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So what we saw is that even though the
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: physical even though our journey started with a physical condition,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the impacts on mental health for those children and the
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: anxiety that they faced was there as well. We also
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: see through our work now at missing school kids whose
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: school isolation starts with a mental health issue or anxiety,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: whatever the causes are, The issue for us is being
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: isolated from school because we know the long term impacts
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: that has, and it's not hard to guess what those are.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Can it walk through them?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: For me?
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  Speaker 1: I think that it's worth.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we know that children struggle academically when they
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: miss school. We know that it disrupts their relationships with
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: their peers, their friendship, and their teachers, and it has
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: those long term impacts on wellbeing, including mental health issues,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: even if the physical condition in this case resolves. So
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: wherever that starts, the long term prospects are effects to wellbeing,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: effects to future productivity, pathways to careers and work life,
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  Speaker 2: and so we need to address this early and make
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: sure that we maintain those community connections that school can provide.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: This is what we've set out to do, and on
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: our journey, what we've found is, and you mentioned this before,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: that school attendance has slipped, has been slipping, and post
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: COVID has took a rapid slide. Really, the numbers of
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: children that this is now affecting and the reasons and
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: causes for it all point to the same thing is
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: that our school systems are not fit for purpose. We
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: believe that we're having We're seeing a lot of these
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: issues arise not only because the children are having a
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: physical illness that prevents them from going to school, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: also that children given differences in the way, children are
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: coming to school with differences and those differences aren't accommodated
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: by the school system. So we're on our journey now
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: to resolve this through policy and work with government.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that everybody who is a school teacher heres that,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and just it must be so hard to be working
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: in a school and continually being told the system's wrong,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the system's not fit for purpose. It's so so difficult,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and yet most teachers, most educators that I speak with
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: will also nod their head in a moment of the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: moment of honesty say yes, and we are doing the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: very best that we can in a system that is,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I guess, built on medieval institutional frameworks and it just
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't really fit what we're dealing with today. When I
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: think about what you're describing, Megan, the immediate question that
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I have, and this is something that I've wrestled with
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: with many parents over the years, is what do we
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: need to do to help kids to get a full education?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Because while the school system may have its quirks, idiosyncrasies
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and frankly faults, education matters. You can get education outside
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of the school system, of course, but whether we're talking
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: about school or not, education matters, and school is the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: place that the overwhelming majority of Australian children need to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: go to get that education. How can we help them
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to be there when either physically or mentally they're just
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: falling apart in can't actually be at school?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it is a big question and it's really
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: coming firmly into an evolution for missing school now because
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: just to put another final point on it, what we
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: see is that we're living in twenty first century pressures
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: and those twenty first century pressures are now disrupting schools.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: As a model we're going into. You mentioned it, it's
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: a post industrial revolution style of model. And I want
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: to say this because I so respect the work that
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: teachers do and that our principles and people in schools do,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: and they are also experiencing the non fit of that model.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure this is why so many teachers and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: so many principles are out on stress leave and experiencing
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: anxiety and depression about their work because of the because
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of the fact that the model doesn't work today. So again,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: how do you get kids to school and how do
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: you get even teachers them?
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: When we came to this, we decided to trial and
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: pilot and we have to w a digital connection into
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the classroom for children who can't physically be there. And
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: we've discovered that to way digital connection can take place.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Schools have done it across Australia and what we see
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: when children are connected that way, and that includes that
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: has included children who experience extraordinary anxiety. If we didn't
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: start with a physical condition, that there's that safer way
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to join a classroom when they're overwhelmed from a sensory
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: point of view, or they might feel like they're having
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: relationship issues with peers in the classroom, and the disability
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: standards can enable schools to do a lot of things
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: to keep children connected and supported, including through to a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: digital connection. So we have the legislation, we have the technology.
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  Speaker 2: We just need better policy now and we just need
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: our leaders to step up and look at schools as
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: part of critical part of the economy as well as
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: a critical part of children's lives and recognize that we're
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: in an era now where transformation is needed.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Such a complex, challenging and hand ringing kind of challenge
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: for so many families. Meghan Gilmour is the founder and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: CEO of Missing School. You can google and find Meghan.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: We will link to her and all of her info
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in these show notes. Meghan really appreciate you jumping under
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the pod and having a chat with us today.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on today.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Justin Meghan has been named the twenty twenty five ACT
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  Speaker 1: Australian of the Year and I think that this is
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a conversation that is not going to go away in
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  Speaker 1: a hurry. So much too, so much to juggle and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: so much to deal with here. If this has brought
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: anything up for you, Like I said, we will link
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to missing school and other resources in the show notes.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mem Hammonds provides research and other admin support.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: If you would like more information and rese sources to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: support your family and help them to be happier and flourish,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you can visit happy families dot com dot au. Oh
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: should also mention tomorrow on the Happy Families Podcast. Another
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: school topic we're going to be talking about, whether or
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: not leave should or should not be approved, if kids
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: are being told by their parents to take the day
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: off or the week off for out of school term holidays, controversial, provocative,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to get the down low on that as well.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: That's tomorrow on the podcast. We'll see you there.